Most clients with a budget in the sub $10,000 range ultimately want to take over daily content management. Although I agree with her take on Wordpress, it would be nice to see what alternatives she proposes, keeping in mind basic content management capabilities, security, and other client needs.
For what it's worth, concrete5[1] solves many of the issues discussed, and has been our go-to CMS for some time now. It satisfies both developer and client needs quite nicely.